For my money, the best bookstore space in Charlottesville is Random Row Books.
It's probably because it's a bookstore that also hosts many community-oriented events, and so it is a wide-open, loft-like space, though only a one-story building. I'm not sure of the history of the building, but it was possibly some kind of garage or warehouse in the past. Whatever it was, it makes for a gritty yet extremely welcoming bookstore space today. Plus, what other bookstore do you know where you can walk in looking for books, and walk out with a free set of sewing-machine needles for the old Kenmore sewing machine you just received as a gift?
Anyway, books line most of the walls, from floor to ceiling, and while browsing, I found a little corner shelf containing a couple of piles that looked to be yet-cataloged additions to Random Row's offerings.
In these piles I spied what looked like a worn-leather spine, with a crack or two, and as I am always curious to see how old a book that looks like that will be, I took it up and gave it a closer look.
It was The Sign of the Four, the second Sherlock Holmes story written by Arthur Conan Doyle. What it actually was was The Sign of the Four and A Study in Scarlet, which was the first appearance of Sherlock Holmes.